Crispi and I were never intimate, and the supposed confidence between us never extended beyond the communication of political matter which he thought should be made public, and which could be made public without violation of official secrecy. He had far too high an estimate of his position as the head of the government of one of the powers of Europe to enter into intimacy with a correspondent of even the "Times," a journal of which, nevertheless, he always spoke with the respect due another power. "It is not merely a journal, but a great public institution," he said, and he treated me as the agent of that power; but intimacy in any other sense there never was. Crispi had, to a degree I never knew in any other Italian minister, the sense of the dignity of his position, which, to those who did not read the man thoroughly, seemed arrogance, and made him many enemies. He had an invincible antipathy to newspaper correspondents, but at the outset of our acquaintance I made him understand that even if he did not see fit to treat me with cordiality, he should not treat the "Times" with disrespect. He had two secretaries, Alberto Pisani Dossi, one of the most noble Italian natures I ever knew, and Edmond Mayor, a Swiss, naturalized in Italy, and an admirable diplomat, now in its service, an honest, faithful child of the mountain republic; and both these became and remain my excellent friends, and, as they were permitted, they kept me informed of the matters which it was for the advantage of the "Times" to know; but until near the end of the first term of Crispi's premiership we never came nearer than that to being friends. I found his manner intolerable, as, no doubt, other journalists did, and, as the relations of the journalists to the man in office are in Italy generally corrupt, Crispi's aversion to them and their ways accounted easily for the very general and violent hostility between him and the press.